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I will respect your right to disagree with what I have to say about Pens and Pencils as long as you respect the fact that I am an Old Geezer.

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If you need detailed instructions on how to clear a lead jam from a mechanical pencil then click this link, "All Jammed Up?" or the link in the pages header.

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Please enjoy your stay at my humble blog. Please feel free to leave a comment about any article that you read. Also please notice that there are four reactions at the bottom of each article. If you find any article funny, interesting, cool or helpful please so indicate. Thank you for visiting my blog.

The Old Geezer

Please Excuse My Absence I have not blogged since July of 2015 due to the fact that my Lovely Wife was diagnosed with 2 types of cancer. A new case of breast cancer which has metastasized and gone to her bones, mainly her back. She had a mastectomy of her left breast which showed the type of cancer that was in her bones. She has been taking an oral med. every day and she has a port under her skin to receive a liquid med. She has gone through one round of radiation treatments to stop some pain in her back. That gave her GERD and the med for that was nasty tasting. The bone cancer has caused the vertebra in her lower back to pinch her left sciatic nerve causing her pain, numbness and foot drag. She also has skin cancer that has only been partly addressed.

I have been busy taking care of her as the treatments have left her weak and sickly. She can not drive so I have to drive her to her appointments and treatments. I also have to do all the cooking and most of what cleaning we do. So I do not have a lot of time for blogging. However the installment of the review of the Schaeffer Ultrafine 0.3mm pencil marks what I hope will be a new review every month. However some of my future reviews may seem familiar as they may be a review of a pencil or pen that I have reviewed before just in another size due to my limited collection of writing instruments and the economic state of our nation.

I am grateful to George Fox for wanting me to do a review of another one of his pencils. I think that as a reader of my humble blog, may fine of interest as the Schaeffer Ultra Fine is a very unusual pencil.

So please excuse my absence and as a reader of my humble blog I hope that you enjoy the review of this unique pencil.

Coming Soon...

Thank you,

The Old Geezer.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

I have never been a fan of multi-pens. Mainly because of the early ones like the Bic 4 color pens. They were always ball points and in four colors, red, blue, green and black! And the slimmer 2 color pens that came in either red and black or blue and red, again in all point. Not a big fan of ball point pens either. Refills, if the pen was refillable, were hard to find, expensive and the reservoir was small! But over the years things have changed. Now there are all kinds of refillable multi-pens! Some are still ball-point pens, but even so many of these come with a built in mechanical pencil! The best are the ones that are 3 to 4 pen/pencil multi pens that are sold empty. The user them customizes their own multi-pen with a wide variety of refills, from ball point to gel to mechanical pencil. Some can even be fitted with a stylus! These multi-pens are a far cry from the earlier ones and can be custom fitted to suit the need of the user!

One of the very best of these is the very versatile Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto Lumio 4 (now that's a mouth full)! This pen comes as a pen body with nothing in it! A blank slate ready to be filled with the users desired components! The components are each sold separately. The body comes in Black, Metallic Blue, Metallic Pink, Silver, Blue, Gray, Pink, soft Green and White as sold by JetPen.com. Mine is in silver. The Hi-Tec-C gel pen refills come in 0.3 mm, 0.4 mm & 0.5 mm sizes in 15 different colors! The mechanical pencil refill comes in 0.3 mm and 0.5 mm. There is also an eraser component and a stylus component! WOW! That's a lot of different refills! Choices, choices, choices!

I ended up choosing the 0.3 mm mechanical pencil (a no-brainer) and a black gel pen in all 3 sizes! Sweet! I'm happy with my choices as I do use gel pens often. And 0.3 mm is my favorite lead size. I carry with me, in a pocket protector, a 0.5 mm drafting pencil, a uni Signo 207 Micro, a Pilot 0.38 mm G2, a stick eraser, a retractable EF Sharpie and an X-Acto style hobby knife. In a second pocket protector I carry a small top ring note book. My lovely wife calls them my "Geek Gear". Cute. But at one time or another while out and about, I've had need of every item in the pouches! What I am considering doing is to replace the 2 gel pens and the pencil with the Coleto Lumio 4! I like it that much! But to be perfectly honest, if I had not been gifted the body, I probably never would have bought one and the refills to fill it.

Filling the Coleto is easy as popin' the top!

Sliding in the refill, making sure all the grooves and tabs align (they practically thread themselves and lock in with a noticeable feel)!

Then closing the top! It closes with a snap! The Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto Lumio 4 is now ready for use, eh almost! Before you insert the pencil component into the pencil you should put a few pieces of lead into the reservoir. This is easily done as the tip separates from the reservoir easily where the plastic part of the tip connects to the metal reservoir. Add a few pieces of lead to the reservoir then reassemble the component. NOW insert it into the body...

Using the Coleto is as simple as any other multi-pen only smoother. The components go down with a smooth, easy motion using very little pressure because the springs in the pen are light but strong enough to do the job. Releasing the locked down component is equally as light and easy! As far as the feel of the pen components goes, they feel like any other Hi-Tec-C gel pen of the size chosen. Same goes for the 0.3mm pencil. The tips of the pencils and pens look very similar. This means the pencil's lead sleeve is short making it definitely a mechanical pencil component, not a drafting pencil component. So long as excess lead is not extended and excess pressure is not applied then the pencil writes fine.

Pencil tip

Pen tip

Now I guess you blog readers want me to give you some stats! Well I'm not going to do it! Nope, not this time! Ain't gonna do it! Well, OK! You talked me into it... Or was that just the voices in my head...? Anyway, the Coleto Lumio 4 is a lightweight weighing only15.7 grams filled as I have it. Different components are going to change the weight to some degree. The over all length with the components detracted is 142 mm making it of average length. The upper body diameter is 12.3 mm and the diameter of the grip is 11.4 mm. The balance point is approximately 72 mm from the tip of the pen body. This makes the pen nearly perfectly balanced at the pens center. The pen body is plastic with a metal pocket clip. The body separates from the grip so the components can be accessed without excessive wear and tear on the pens cap. The texture of the finish on the plastic is excellent! Despite there being no roughness to the surface the surface provides an excellent gripping surface! I have no problem holding onto the pen!

Bottom line... Like I stated earlier, I would probably never have bought a Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto Lumio 4 Multi-pen if it had not been for the gift of the body. I like the pen so much I am now considering buying another one, maybe in blue, and filling it with both pencil components, the eraser component and the stylus component! I'll certainly review it if I do! So, if you are in the market for a good, customizable, multi-pen then I don't think you could go wrong by purchasing a Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto Lumio 4 from JetPens.com.

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